The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (31 page)

‘CNS-MM?’

‘The Central Nervous System Memory Molecules – deep and broad-banded – a result of a good diet and the competitive marine environment. We collected a number of good condons. Those Benthic genes will come in handy when we design the next generation of warrior ARNOLDs – a new Super Arnold!’

Furlong shook his head and pushed the reports away. ‘No more ARNOLDs!’ Look at the cost analyses on that batch we just raised: special diet, chains, Chapel and Chairman time. Leptosoul conditioning and soporifics were only partially successful in controlling them. And look at the results! Every one of them was a potential danger to the Hive. Our Greater Arnold actually broke away and survives to fight us. We built plankton Harvesters and then lost them. No more ARNOLDs!’

‘But we can’t stop now,’ explained Wandee, searching for one of her reports. ‘He is still free.’

‘So . . . ? He’s a genetic defective. Time will take care of him.’

‘Maybe not,’ she said. ‘I built the defect into his genes, and it is true that he can’t manufacture fifteen of the amino acids. However, he is probably searching for a mate among the Benthics. His hybrid offspring will have only one of his defective genes. A good gene from the mother will enable the children to handle proteins normally. They’ll have half ARNOLD and half Benthic. Very tough! And bright too.’

Furlong glanced at Wandee’s Mendelian chart and scoffed. ‘But there are trillions of us. How many of these hybrids do we have to worry about? Two? Ten?’

‘Maybe hundreds? You must remember that he is a battle-cock – King ARNOLD.’

‘Hundreds?’

‘Depending on the availability of Benthic females. Judging from the numbers of males our Hunters were bringing in over the past decade, I’d say that ARNOLD would have little trouble gathering up quite a harem. Keeping them all pregnant would be no problem.’

‘I suppose that a future Megajury would blame me for that,’ said Furlong.

‘And me,’ said Wandee. ‘Unless we could make friends with them. If we don’t make certain the Hive benefits from all these hybrid ARNOLDs we could have a very uncomfortable retirement.’

‘Or a short one,’ mumbled the tired Chairman. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘At least a truce. Perhaps lay the groundwork for trade.’

Furlong’s eyes narrowed. ‘A truce. Do you suppose he would agree?’

‘It is possible. I think it is worth a try.’

Larry galloped up and down the tilted decks of the damaged ship. Pumps worked around the clock to keep the water-level below the work area. Repair Crews composed of Benthics and
Rorqual
’s tecks tried to get the cyber units back in working order.

‘A crane twitched. You must be on a motor fibre,’ shouted Larry.

A teck glanced out of the hatch, a bundle of small gleaming tools in his fist. He watched the crane while one of his partners repeated the stimulus. The crane began slowly to raise its cable. The teck smiled and ducked down the hatch.

‘There’s a call for ARNOLD on the long ear,’ buzzed
Rorqual
’s deck speaker.

Larry glanced over the side. The giant was busy patching the hull in ten fathoms of water.

‘I’ll take it,’ said the hemihuman. ‘Who is it?’ His mannequin pawed one of its four feet as the communication link was closed.

‘I’m Wandee – ARNOLD’s mother-figure,’ said the voice. She explained why she had called.

‘Peace?’ said Larry. ‘I’m sure you’ll have all the peace you need if you just leave us alone.’

‘But the raids have continued. The shelf Benthics have turned savage and aggressive.’

‘I can understand that – after your raid on Two Mile. It will take them a while to forget.’

‘Isn’t there something the Hive can do?’

Larry thought for a while, then shook his head.

Furlong leaned forward to turn up the volume. ‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Wandee. ‘He just shook his head and signed off.’

‘Well, try again!’

Wandee stood up slowly. ‘I will – later. We may have to wait a long time. These primitives have long memories. Our dissections showed CNS-MMs that dated back to childhood. Sharp, clear images of things that happened twenty and thirty years before death.’

Furlong gasped. He wasn’t sure how far back his own memories went. The string of monotonous days was difficult to date. There were few changes in the Hive.

‘Let’s load a barge with gifts and send out a negotiator under a truce flag. We’ll offer them anything to get them talking. That fellow, Larry, seemed to be a pleasant one. Perhaps he’ll sit down with us.’

Wandee nodded. ‘I’m sure they could use clothing and entertainment-tapes. Why, we have luxuries those primitives haven’t even dreamed of.’

The CO documented the meeting and authorized the barge. Shipyards set to work equipping one of the floating docks with communications and a guidance system. Tons of spangled chiffon, trinkets, and gewgaws were loaded.

Grandmaster Ode convulsed twice during his rewarming. When he opened his eyes he saw Drum’s tired, old face.

‘You look worse than I feel.’ Ode grinned.

‘I’m OK,’ said Drum, checking the casts and bandages that protected the Grandmaster’s many fractures. ‘Can you wiggle your fingers and toes?’

‘Only the right hand moved, didn’t it?’

‘Don’t worry about that. The Neuro Team thinks they can decompress those nerves. You’ll be in the surgical amphitheatre for quite a while. The bladder work will take most of the afternoon.’

Ode took a deep breath. ‘There are funny sounds in my chest.’

‘Just the perfusion fluids. You’ve only been warm a few hours. It’ll clear.’

‘Did my number come up already?’

‘In a manner of speaking. I volunteered you for a new job. It’s right up your file – sort of an ambassador.’

‘To where?’

‘The Benthics.’

Ode moaned. ‘Are you forgetting who put me here?’

‘They have a new leader now – an ARNOLD. One of our synthetic warriors – predictable – programmed by the Hive. I was going to go myself. I know him. But I saw this as an opportunity to rewarm you and have your Clinic work authorized. This job carries a pretty high priority. The Chairman himself is behind it.’

Ode tried to shrug. ‘Why not? I’d probably never come up for repair anyhow – after I lost my command. When do I start?’ His toothless grin masked a fearful memory of Clam’s vicious attack. He was glad he did not have to face such a rabid animal again.

The White Team wheeled him away, gently swaying in his web of orthopaedic pins and wires, bone fragments grating, soft tissues swelling with edema and haemorrhage.

‘Get him on the pump quickly,’ said the teck. ‘Those injuries are still soaking up his blood volume. He’s going to need a lot more haemoglobin and calcium.’

‘I think we saved his scrotum. The bladder laceration is sutured. The drains can come out in three days. If any more urine had leaked into the tissues we might have lost it. See if the Bone Team can stabilize these fractures. Another sharp spicule might open up the urinary tract again.’

Ode woke up during the change of teams. The pump made him comfortable. ‘Are you my bone man?’

‘Yes. We’re going to use electron-flow treatment exclusively because you have to be in a cast for your pelvic fractures. I am bracketing each fracture-line with a pair of electrodes so that the electron flow will be across the bony defect. Healing time can be cut in half at least.’

Ode glanced up at the colour-coded X-rays. Small plus and minus symbols were paired up at each black fracture. The teck drove his needle-like wires into Ode’s swollen tissues, probing for the bone fragments.

‘Tissue resistance, 0.14 megohm.’

The external circuit was built into the cast – a three-volt power cell, microammeter, and a 0.63 megohm resistor.

‘The potential difference here will be about 0.55 volt. He’ll need about forty coulombs for this fracture.’

The bodycast gradually took shape – from toes to waist. Eighteen circuits were drawn on the white outer surface, with circular windows for the ammeter faces. Ode glanced down at the diagrams.

‘I look like a meck,’ he laughed.

‘Now we’ll have to put you back to sleep for the shoulder capsule repair. It’s too high for the cord trickle-current anaesthesia.’

‘Is that all there is to it? A few pins in my legs? I thought you’d be pounding in those big rods.’

The teck smiled. ‘The intermedullary rods? No. They are handy if we want to get you up in a chair right away – or on crutches. But with all those fracture-lines in your pelvis you need a cast anyway. So electron flow is indicated. We can’t use both. The IM rods would draw off the current – sort of shunt it past the growing bone, where is doesn’t have the effect we want.’

As Ode dozed off he caught a glimpse of strange hardware and a furtive operating team.

The Benthic warriors prepared to leave Har Island. Their twin-hulled catamarans were heavily laden with booty from the captured vessels. Larry stood on the makeshift dock and handed out bags of Lyme grass seed (
Elymus arenarius
).

‘And from the northern islands – wheat,’ he said to each voyager. ‘Have a pleasant journey.’

The island seemed quiet when its population returned to normal. Wandee called on the long ear.

‘ARNOLD still won’t talk to anyone from the Hive,’ said Larry. ‘He is angry about the way you set up the prisoner exchange. Killing our man and then sending him back with a class-nine brain box was not very sporting.’

Wandee apologized. ‘It is a big Hive. I don’t know who was responsible for the vivisection. But I think our people should make peace.’

‘I agree.’

‘What do you want the Hive to do?’

‘Just stay out of our Ocean!’

Wandee nodded.

Grandmaster Ode sat up in bed as best he could. Three days in the cast had drained his energy. He gazed listlessly at the chessboard. His Dispenser was building a scintillating Pirc-Robatsch Defence, but he couldn’t concentrate. Drum entered with a bundle of sea charts.

‘I’m sorry I disturbed you,’ he said. ‘You look a little tired. Here, keep these until later.’

The rolls were pushed into a pigeonhole above the bed. Drum fingered the long printout coils before leaving.

‘You’re coming along fine. You’ll be good as new in a few months.’

Furlong called Drum down to the Shipyards.

‘Our barge came back.’

‘Really? Wandee never mentioned it reaching ARNOLD,’ said Drum.

‘It didn’t. The shelf Benthics intercepted it and stole the gifts.’

‘It’s odd that they allowed it to return.’

‘I think they wanted to tell us something,’ said Furlong. ‘Look here.’

They walked up on the empty barge. The tall sensor pole and drive units were intact. A brownish, grisly object was pinned to the deck by a broken harpoon.

‘The left hand of our negotiator,’ said the Chairman.

Drum leaned against the pole for a second.

‘This harpoon is from one of our pursuit vessels,’ continued Furlong.

Drum swallowed hard. ‘I guess we won’t be needing Ambassador Ode—’

‘Let’s have Wandee call Larry again. Maybe they want ransom for our negotiator before they send us his other hand – or his head. Hurry!’

Larry listened patiently. ‘I’m sorry, Wandee, but I’ll have to throw your own words back at you. It is a big Ocean. I don’t know who attacked your man under a flag of truce, but I’ll speak to King ARNOLD about it.’

Wandee nodded to Furlong. Larry returned to the screen. ‘We will look into it. It will take a few days to find the spot. Do you have the coordinates where your barge turned around?’

The screen printed: 25o 03’14’ – 145o 14’28’.

Clam’s trimaran rode with sea anchor out.
Rorqual
located it on the second day of searching after reaching the coordinates. Larry stood on the foredeck in his four-legged mannequin, feeling a bit like a centaur.

ARNOLD worked on the floor of his cabin, surrounded by small components from a meck hand. He’d give the negotiator a prosthesis if he could talk the Benthic into accepting ransom. When they saw Clam they relaxed.

‘I might have known,’ shouted Larry. ‘The Hive told us you have a prisoner of theirs. Do you want to talk ransom? We have a communicator and one of the Hive chairmen, who is anxious to see his man returned.’

‘Prisoner?’ said Clam.

Larry looked down from
Rorqual
’s prow. The trimaran’s decks were littered with ornate cases, gilt-edged mountings and electric baubles, all broken down by the curious primitives. A circle of stones and a pile of charred bones told the rest of the story.

‘They ate him,’ said Larry sadly.

Wandee gasped. Furlong stood up and left the room. The Hive could turn Citizens into issue protein, but no single individual could eat another!

‘I know it sounds crude,’ continued the little hemihuman, ‘but Clam thinks you should be honoured. It is the highest form of flattery to eat your enemy after you vanquish him. It means that you admire him and want to be more like him.’

Wandee remained silent. Drum reached over her shoulder and tuned out the screen.

ARNOLD set his jaw. ‘Maybe that will discourage the damned Hive from invading our waters.’

Larry shrugged. ‘It should do something.’

Rorqual
returned to the islands.

Furlong led a pair of White Mecks into old Grandmaster Ode’s room. ‘Time for the Eo treatments – electron flow – to stop. Today you will go from the cast to a brace.’

‘Good! The itching was beginning to get me down. Where’s Drum?’

‘He’ll see you in Recovery. Actually, you are in better shape than he is. Old age is pressing him down. He seems to get shorter every day.’

‘Didn’t he go for treatment when he was Chairman?’

‘No. He lost his priority when he resigned. But we’ll try to work something out.’ Furlong smiled. ‘I’ll see you after the cast is off.’

Hard arteries pulsed under Drum’s thin scalp as he set up the chessboard in Recovery. Ode was asleep when he was wheeled in. Drum dozed off too.

‘Say!’ interrupted Wandee. ‘Are you two going to sleep around the clock?’

Ode tried to open his eyes but one lid felt itchy and painful. ‘Ouch! I can’t see so good.’